Posts Tagged ‘sanction’

Because of concern for scuttling a major telecommunications deal with Iran, Sweden will oppose any additional sanctions by the European Union against the country, according to a report in Haaretz.

An unnamed Israeli official said that due to a deal being brokered between Tehran and Sweden’s Ericsson telecom provider, Sweden will not support a toughening stance against the country which appears to be pursuing a nuclear weapon which it has insinuated it may use against Israel or the United States. Ericsson also conducts business with China, a country which has raised international concerns over human rights abuses.

In October 2011, Bloomberg news reported that Ericsson enabled tracking of cell phone users to the Irancell phone provider, technology which was used by the Iranian government to track opposition leaders.

According to Haaretz, Sweden’s official position is that the only ones impacted by sanctions are Iranian civilians, and that the measures would not influence government policy.

Greece, Malta, and Cyprus have also opposed increased sanctions against Iran.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the UK, France, Italy, and Germany have all proposed a full trade embargo on Iran.

Sanctions to be discussed by EU members in Luxembourg on Monday include the banning of financial transactions and export of metals and graphite, as well as a total halt to the provision of ship building, oil storage technologies by European firms, and a boycott of Iranian natural gas.

Humanitarian and medical supplies, and food, would not be affected by sanctions.

The Iranian currency, the rial, has plummeted by two-thirds of its value against the dollar in the last several weeks. Iran has announced its intention to implement austerity measures and reduce imports of non-essential goods.

The effective shutdown of the Iranian nuclear program due to sanctions has been a major goal of the United States. Failure to shut down the program will likely lead to an Israeli military action against Iranian nuclear sites.

The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) on Wednesday released a report documenting extensive anti-Semitism and racial hatred on YouTube, prompting the popular video-sharing website to close the account of the most egregious culprit.

The report, which seeks to address the lacunae in online regulation of hate speech, highlights how one one user uploaded 1,710 videos in a single day – the vast majority (87%) of which consisted of blatant hate speech. A substantial number of the videos concerned Holocaust denial and defense of Holocaust deniers. Some videos accused Jews and Israel of masterminding the September 11 terrorist attacks. YouTube closed the user’s account within 24 hours of receiving an advanced copy of OHPI’s report.

Although encouraged that YouTube took the necessary corrective measures, OHPI expressed concern that it took the impending release of the report to prompt YouTube to close the account. OHPI’s CEO, Dr Andre Oboler: “YouTube must be commended for its speedy response to OHPI’s report, but it is concerning that such hateful content, and in such volume in a single account, was able to remain on the YouTube site for over a month without triggering internal warnings.”

More specifically, the report reveals that one video was flagged multiple times within a few days of being uploaded, and that YouTube was notified by e-mail of both this video and the account more generally by a Jewish community organization – the Executive Council of Australian Jewry – within the first week of the video’s upload.

The report recommends “greater sanctions both by the state and by the platform provider” when such grave violations occur, suggesting that “a comparison can be drawn to copyright law, where commercial scale can tip the matter from a civil action into a criminal offence.”

“When the sanction for copyright infringement is greater, and more rigorously enforced, than the sanction for promoting genocide, we need to stop and question our priorities” Dr Oboler concluded.

OHPI was established in January 2012 in Victoria, Australia for the purpose of combating online hate and facilitating a change in online culture

The general secretary of Switzerland’s Jewish community has reprimanded the Swiss government for failing to enact sanctions against Iran, despite full implementation by the EU and US.

“We regret the attitude of Switzerland, which one again stands in contrast to the policies of other Western states,” Jonathan Kreutner, general secretary of the 18,000-member Jewish community said in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.

“Especially at a time in which Western states are seeking to oppose the Iranian nuclear threat through intensified economic sanctions, we find Switzerland’s actions worrisome,” he said.

The Swiss government announced a sanctions package last week in which they froze the assets of 11 Iranian nationals and companies.

The Central Bank of Iran was untouched by the sanction, as was Iran’s primary oil and gas trade company in Switzerland.

European states are considering whether to join the US in its bid to further isolate Iran by outlawing transactions with Iran’s central bank, which would make it harder for customers to pay for Iranian oil and thereby reduce Iranian oil shipments.

“Regarding the economic crisis in the eurozone, imposing any sanction on Iran’s oil will push European countries into a deeper crisis,” Khatibi said.